Kevin Brennan: We are in the process of developing a brand new portal of information about the funding that is available to voluntary organisations, the details of which we hope to announce in the near future. In my hon. Friend's area of Stoke-on-Trent, the grass-roots grants programme—the innovative £130 million Government programme to get grants to small organisations—is investing more than £70,000. I recently announced some changes to the rules to make it easier for organisations to apply, including through matching funding backdated to the beginning of the financial year.

Gordon Brown: Lance Corporal Stephen Kingscott, Marine Darren Smith and Private Ryan Wrathall have all given their lives in the service of our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know that the whole House will join me in expressing our condolences to their families and friends. Time and again our service personnel show us their courage and commitment. They are dedicated men and women who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for our country and in the interests of a safer world. They shall not be forgotten.
	I know that the whole House will want to express our sorrow at the sad death this morning of Ivan Cameron at the age of just six, and our condolences go out to David, to Samantha and to the Cameron family. I know that, in an all-too-brief young life, he brought joy to all those around him, and I also know that for all the days of his life he was surrounded by his family's love. Every child is precious and irreplaceable, and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure.
	Politics can sometimes divide us, but there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compassion at times of trial, and in support for each other at times of grief. Sarah and I have sent our condolences to David and Samantha, and I know that the whole country, and our thoughts and our prayers, are with David, Samantha and their family today.

William Hague: I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Lance Corporal Stephen Kingscott and Marine Darren Smith, who were killed in Afghanistan, and to Private Ryan Wrathall, who died in Iraq. Whenever we read out such names, it is a reminder that whenever death comes, or however it comes, it is a devastating loss to the families involved. That is why I want to thank the Prime Minister on behalf of David and his family for his very generous and, I know, heartfelt words and for the private condolences that he passed on this morning. I also want to thank the Prime Minister for suggesting that we suspend the normal exchanges of Prime Minister's questions, and the Speaker for agreeing to that exceptional action, which is deeply appreciated by David's friends and colleagues in every part of the House. As much as anyone in the House, the Prime Minister will understand the dimensions of this loss—which, as he has said, is something no parent should have to endure. I spoke to David a little while ago, and he has asked me to pass on his thanks for the sympathy already expressed by so many colleagues in this House and beyond.
	Ivan's six years of life were not easy ones. His parents lived with the knowledge that he could die young for a long time, but that has made their loss no less heartbreaking. They also wanted me to say, once again, how hugely grateful they are to the many NHS and care workers, who not only did their utmost for their son this morning, but have helped him every day from the moment he was born. We should remember today that many thousands of other families are deeply grateful for the dedication, support and love of these highly professional people. We know how much their help has meant to the Cameron family. Ivan, their son, suffered much in his short life, but he brought joy and love to those around him, and, as David himself has said in the past, for him and Samantha he will always be their beautiful boy.

Vincent Cable: May I add my condolences to the family and friends of the three servicemen who died serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan? May I also say a few words on behalf of my party leader, my parliamentary colleagues and my party to extend our deepest sympathy to the Cameron family on the loss of their son, Ivan, this morning? Everybody in the House will have experienced bereavement, but there is something especially sad and shocking about the loss of a child. We all recognise that that is something that is especially difficult to cope with. This is a personal tragedy that transcends all party barriers, and I simply express the hope that the family are given the space and privacy to grieve and cope with the tragedy that they have experienced.

Alan Whitehead: As the House resumes its sitting, I add my heartfelt condolences to David and Samantha Cameron on the tragic loss of their son, Ivan.
	I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the establishment of minimum levels of recyclates in designated products and classes of product; to establish a scheme for the certification of designated products; and for connected purposes.
	Recent press reports about waste mountains piling up, because of the collapse of markets for recovered waste as raw materials for new production, are wide of the mark. Most recovered waste continues to be sold at reasonable prices, although it is fair to say that there has been a considerable falling off in the price for cans, PET plastic, paper and cardboard. Those are the sinews of recovered material in the UK and the vital ingredient in ensuring that the waste hierarchy is maintained.
	That hierarchy, long adopted as the guide to waste management practice, indicates that the best way to reduce waste is to avoid creating it in the first place; if it is created, it should be possible to recover and reuse it. If not, and if it is organic, the waste can be composted and, further down the hierarchy, used for energy recovery. Only after all other uses have been considered might residual waste be disposed of in landfill.
	The press reports perhaps gain more credibility than they deserve because they reflect an underlying question often asked about recovered waste: what happens next? If all the efforts of recovery are lost because nothing does happen next, the point of those efforts will come into question. Where recyclates are concerned, the establishment and development of markets for the raw materials that come again into existence is a vital part of the process.
	As a country, we have been doing well in recent years on the issue of recovering waste. Landfill is reducing significantly, waste growth is slowing and, in the past 10 years, recycling and composting have quadrupled. The recycling of packaging has doubled. Those are impressive gains on the picture 10 years ago of overwhelming reliance on landfill, with the consequent huge waste of usable resources and the huge loss of opportunity to replace virgin material coming into the production cycle with recovered, already-used raw materials. It also represented an enormous cost in carbon emissions, but we still have a long way to go. We are still landfilling far more of our waste than virtually any other country in Europe and we face ambitious targets for the further development of the recovery of waste over the next 10 years.
	By 2020, we should be recovering 75 per cent. of municipal waste and rapidly reducing to a minimum residual municipal and commercial waste that goes to landfill. That means, quite simply, that we will need to find ever more widespread markets for the resources that we are recovering. An increasing range of products will have to have a substantial element of recovered materials in their content. If we do not find markets for this resource, it will inevitably tumble down the waste hierarchy—high-grade waste such as food standard plastic will be mixed with low-grade plastic, and recyclates that could be used for manufacture will be used for energy. At worst, pre-collected and sorted waste with no market for its potential will return to landfill.
	The  Daily Mail and its like tell us regularly, and usually erroneously, that carefully collected and sorted waste is all going into a big skip and thence to landfill. It is true that a good proportion of that waste is exported for reuse and does not enter the domestic product cycle, but some of this is justified in the long term. For example, we produce far more scrap metal as a country than we could conceivably use for metal manufacturing, so it makes sense to export clean metal for manufacturing abroad. The recent dip in markets was very much a phenomenon of demand for exported waste and indicates that the international market is perhaps a less reliable way to go than has been assumed. Yet today we rely on this market to remove much of our sorted waste.
	As regards glass, we export 250,000 tonnes a year out of 1.5 million tonnes recycled. We export more than half the 8.6 million tonnes of paper and card that we recycle. Two thirds of plastic packaging and almost 80 per cent. of metal is exported. We can imagine what the loss of these markets might do to the stream of recyclates coming through the system on a continuous basis. That will not happen, of course, but to keep up with the expanding stream of recyclates, we need to export more, as matters stand, and in some instances to export more where identical virgin material is coming through our docks the other way to enter the production cycle.
	My ten-minute Bill, which should perhaps be more exactly and accurately entitled the recyclate content Bill, would provide a way to face up to this future and emerging problem for our waste with confidence and with secure markets, primarily here in this country, for the results of our efforts to recover and reuse our waste streams. It would enable the Government to specify levels of recyclate to be included in the production of designated products on sale in the UK. In short, where a product or a range of products was designated by the mechanisms contained in the Bill, it would be required, as a condition of sale, to have the right amount of recycled content within it.
	This might be thought of by some as a sudden and irrational flight of fancy—"That would never work!" Yet it does already, in goods and services that we all buy and use. The renewable transport fuel obligation, or RTFO, requires producers of fuel in the UK to include in their products an aggregate of 2.5 per cent. renewable fuel this year, rising to 5 per cent. by 2010—that is, the addition of biodiesel or bioethanol to mineral fuel. If someone switches their lights on, the product that they will be using and buying—electricity—will have, as a requirement of sale to them, a defined element procured from renewable sources. The Bill, then, would not introduce a new concept or restrain the market but instead provide a level playing field for the makers of designated products and, as in the case of the RTFO and the renewables obligation, a buy-out price or the opportunity to purchase credits if someone does not or cannot comply. Those exceeding their targets in recyclates have an opportunity to benefit by trading additionally with those who do not.
	There are enormous opportunities for the use of recyclates in products, usually at or near the cost of finding the raw materials from virgin sources. The issue is largely the will to do it and to break the "first mover" cycle of those who say that they cannot supply recycled content products because they cannot get reliable supplies of raw material and, on the other hand, those who say they cannot reliably supply recyclates for manufacture because people will not include recyclates in products. This is of course not true for substantial sections of industry: many manufacturers work hard at including renewables. I applaud the work of those engaged, for example, in the Courtauld commitment on industry recycled content. I commend the work of the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, which successfully matches up companies that have what they regard as waste with those who can use precisely that waste as a resource in their processes—exactly the sort of circular metabolism set out by the Bill. The work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme in encouraging and developing markets for recyclates is also tremendously important and could be greatly enhanced by a recyclate obligation, increasing on a slope as the market firms and the procedure becomes a commonplace.
	What might suitable designated products be? We can think of glass bottle manufacturing using sorted cullet, glass wool for insulation using mixed cullet, road-making material using ground glass and recycled aggregate, breeze block manufacture using recovered ash, street furniture and similar products using recycled low-grade plastic, and items such as high-grade plastic milk bottles using—yes—recycled high-grade plastic milk bottles. There is also, of course, the manufacture of cardboard and the production of paper, even newsprint—currently highly recycled but using, in some cases, material that we send to Canada and then comes back to us as newsprint. There is a long and wide-ranging list, and the task of the mechanisms set out in the Bill would be to set recyclate content levels achievable from supply of waste and introducible economically into the product cycle.
	Do not get me wrong. The Bill does not seek to address failure, or a crisis. It seeks to secure the future for successful recycling in the UK by closing the loop, by making sure that as much as possible goes back into the loop of production, consumption, recovery and presentation for reuse, and by making that closed loop resource-thrifty in a world where we are depleting resources such as oil, from which we make plastic a million times faster than we are replenishing it, and carbon-thrifty in a world where we have to reduce radically the amount of carbon we emit to keep the world habitable. It will do so by using the mechanism of market-shaping to secure the market, and in so doing, it will secure our future recycling requirements.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Dr. Alan Whitehead, Mr. Martin Caton, Colin Challen, Mr. David Drew, Emily Thornberry, Mr. David Chaytor, Mark Lazarowicz, Mr. Barry Sheerman, Mr. Chris Mullin, Paddy Tipping, Dr. Desmond Turner and Mr. Elliot Morley present the Bill.
	Dr. Alan Whitehead accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 8 May and to be printed (Bill 64).

Mark Hoban: This group of amendments focuses on eligibility, a topic that we discussed at some length during what were relatively short Committee proceedings. Today provides an opportunity to retrace two issues covered in this group of amendments. First is the issue that we debated on the first day of the Committee proceedings about what happens to those who move on and off benefits during the time it takes to send out notices of eligibility. The second issue relates to the fact that the Bill is designed to encourage people on low incomes to save, and the Government use benefit entitlements as their proxy for that group. We need to understand the difference between the number of people who are entitled to receive benefits that effectively passport people on to the savings gateway account and the number of people in the low-income group. I set out two different approaches in amendments 3, 4 and 13 to address that issue.
	I shall deal first with amendments 11 and 12. As I said in my opening remarks, they arise from a debate that we had in Committee. The Bill sets out the requirement for someone to be issued with a notice of eligibility on the relevant date, and we debated in Committee at some length what happens when someone becomes eligible for jobseeker's allowance at the start of a period just after the last batch of notices have been sent out, then ceases to be eligible for that allowance before the next batch are sent out. Given that the notice of eligibility drives the ability to open a savings gateway account, we identified in Committee the risk that people who have moved on and off benefit between those two dates of issue may well, although eligible to open a savings gateway account in principle, miss out on that opportunity because they did not qualify on the date that the notice was sent out. That is why amendment 12, in particular, focuses on that matter. It would insert a new subsection (4) into clause 1, stating:
	"If a person was eligible to receive a notice of entitlement by virtue of section 3(1) but had ceased to be eligible before the notice of eligibility was issued, then the person is still entitled to receive that notice."
	That matter was left hanging in Committee. The Economic Secretary assured us that
	"we do not want to stop people who fit our normal criteria receiving support under the Bill". ——[ Official Report, Saving Gateway Accounts Public Bill Committee, 3 February 2009; c. 47.]
	I have tabled amendment 12 to take that matter a little further today. Since I tabled it, and perhaps even triggered by that, the Minister has kindly written to the Chairmen of the Public Bill Committee and circulated the letter to other Committee members, stating that people who ceased to be eligible by the date on which the notice of eligibility was sent out would still receive that notice. We are grateful for that clarification, but it would be helpful for that to be on the record in the House rather than in a letter. I am sure that he will want to make that clear.
	Amendments 3 and 4 are the first way in which we wish to ensure that people who would be eligible for the saving gateway by virtue of being on low income are picked up by the system. As I said, the Government have used eligibility for certain benefits as the criteria for eligibility for the gateway. That means that only people in receipt of those benefits can take part and qualify for a saving gateway account. There may be people on low incomes who do not qualify for benefits and who will miss out as a consequence.
	In Committee, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) tabled amendments intended to increase the number of benefits that would enable eligibility. My amendment takes a different direction. It would set out in the Bill the fact that the group that we are targeting is people on low income. It is worth remembering that some categories of people on low income are ineligible to receive some of the qualifying benefits. For example, somebody who is unmarried, childless and under the age of 25 does not qualify for tax credits. A person on low income below that age would not have a route to access saving gateway accounts, and the same applies to a married couple under that age. In considering how to implement the idea of providing an incentive for those on low income to save, I wonder whether the Government have considered the number of people who fall outside the specified categories and who, despite being on low incomes, will not be eligible because they cannot claim a benefit.
	I appreciate that there is a cost attached to my suggestion, because the method that the Government have adopted builds on existing data that the Government hold either at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs or the Department for Work and Pensions, and it is relatively easy to use the existing databases to send out a notice of eligibility. It would be much harder for the Government to capture people on low incomes who do not qualify for benefits, and it would require a new apparatus of means-testing and forms to be completed when making a claim. The Government might argue that the cost of that additional apparatus is disproportionate to the benefit that it would confer on a new group of recipients, in addition to the costs that would arise through more people saving and qualifying for matching contributions.
	The amendment is probing rather than one to be pressed to a vote, but it is also meant to be almost a reserve power that the Government could deploy if they believed that the proportion of people who are brought within the scope of the saving gateway through qualifying for the benefits in clause 3 is too small compared with the total population of people on low incomes whom they feel should benefit. A Government could deploy that power in future.
	Part of the challenge is that we do not know what the gap is. We do not know how many people should be eligible on the basis of low income and how many are eligible through passporting benefits. Amendment 13 tries to establish the populations as well as identifying the take-up of the savings gateway account in a particular year. It is important to ascertain the effectiveness of the scheme's take-up rate. Perhaps the Economic Secretary will be so taken with the logic of amendment 13 that he would like it to be in the Bill.

Stephen Ladyman: The Committee stage was consensual, but that does not mean that the Bill could not be improved a little, certainly by one addition. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will recollect that I tabled an amendment in Committee to include recipients of carer's allowance among those who were eligible for gateway saving accounts. The Liberal Democrats tabled a similar amendment. I have not tabled such an amendment on Report, and Mr. Speaker would rule me out of order if I sought to debate the merits of including carers in the scheme.
	I believe that the amendments that the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) has tabled, however, would bring some carers within the ambit of the Bill and make them eligible for the gateway saving account. Amendment 13, which calls on the Government to publish an annual report of account recipients or those who are eligible for the accounts, would allow us to calculate how many carers had been excluded from such accounts, even though we would rather want such people to get the accounts.
	I am using that proposal as an excuse to give my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary the opportunity to tell us, hopefully, that the Government intend to table an amendment at some point in the Bill's passage, presumably in the other place, to include recipients of carer's allowance. I understand that he might wish to limit the provision to carer's allowance recipients of working age because, after all, gateway saving accounts are aimed at people on low incomes who are of working age. I would be happy to accept that, but I would be most grateful if he confirmed whether he intends to table such an amendment.
	Having said that, I apologise to colleagues in all parties and to the Economic Secretary; a group of girl guides from my constituency wants to see me at 1 o'clock and I know that hon. Members will not want me to disappoint them. If I do not hear my hon. Friend's response, I assure him that I will read it assiduously afterwards, and I will be back as soon as I have spoken to my constituents and presented them with the awards that they have come here to receive.
	I hope that my hon. Friend can comment on the important issue of carers' eligibility to take up the wonderful opportunity that the Government are giving those on low incomes.

John Howell: A number of hon. Members have pointed out that there was a high degree of consensus on the Bill in Committee. One area where there was perhaps less consensus, and where there is still lingering disappointment, is the extent of continuing parliamentary involvement in and scrutiny of the Bill. I suspect that that sense is likely to arise again today in relation to the third group of amendments, given that we spent considerable time in Committee considering whether much of the delegated legislation should be subject to affirmative or negative resolutions. The essence of that debate also applies today; indeed, it is what lies behind amendment 13, which I am happy to support.
	We on the Conservative Benches recognise that the Government want the Bill to have in-built flexibilities, but it is crucial that Parliament should know whether the Bill is a success. Amendment 13 goes to the heart of that. It is right for Parliament to know whether the Bill is working. There is a need for a proper debate. There has been much discussion about eligibility, including on Second Reading and in Committee, and even already this afternoon. There was also quite a lot of discussion about the appropriate financial limit and, I recall, some probing questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) in the witness sessions of the Public Bill Committee. I would ask that amendment 13 be supported, because it would introduce a welcome element of report-back on a central part of the success criteria of the Bill.

Ian Pearson: I just want to be clear about the numbers of people involved. Our estimate is that 8 million people will qualify for a saving gateway account. We estimate that about 4.5 million working-age people on lower incomes will not qualify through passporting, 2.7 million of whom would qualify if they decided to take up the qualifying benefits. My suggestion is that if they are not at the moment taking up qualifying benefits to which they are entitled, they might not want to fill in a means test. That leaves out 1.8 million people, who represent a real issue. We would like to provide assistance to them, just as we would like the 2.7 million people to get the benefits to which they are entitled and to consider opening a saving gateway account. I hope that this intervention has provided some information so that we are all taking about the same numbers.

Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 6, in page 5, line 25 [Clause 11], leave out paragraph (e).

Stephen Ladyman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. His answer to my question might mean that I will not need to make a further contribution to the debate on this group of amendments. One possible effect of the hon. Gentleman's amendment is that it might be used to exclude small friendly savings providers, such as credit unions, as they do not have the wider access to other banking services that the amendment seems to require. It might also prevent the Government from targeting these accounts through Post Office Counters—something that might help to keep some of the post offices in all our constituencies open. I hope that that is not the intention, but will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is simply a probing amendment and that he does not intend to limit these accounts to the big banks. If that is his intention, I will certainly want to vote against it.

Stephen Ladyman: But the wording of paragraph (c) would empower the Government to limit provision to organisations that are willing to provide access to a wider range of financial services. Organisations such as credit unions that could not provide that wider access would be covered by that paragraph, with the result that the Government or a future regulator might prevent them from providing gateway saving accounts.

Mark Hoban: In the course of discussion about financial inclusion, it has frequently been observed that some institutions are not very keen on encouraging access to financial services products. We want such institutions to commit themselves to widening the range of services available to people who are at present financially excluded. We do not them to cherry-pick gateway saving accounts and not offer other products to those people. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote, but it will depend on how the Government choose to use their powers to determine access to financial services products. I want institutions that participate to be committed to financial inclusion. I do not want them to view the gateway saving account as a product in isolation in which they are currently interested, while not being particularly interested in broadening financial inclusion.
	Credit unions, as organisations, are committed to financial inclusion. That is the essence of their activities, as is clear from the extension of their offer of savings accounts to include current accounts and their offer of loans consisting of relatively small amounts. Part of their mission is financial inclusion, and I certainly do not believe that paragraph (c) seeks to exclude them. What they may not be able to offer is access. We need to ensure that providers operate in as many locations as possible, are keen to support financial inclusion, and are committed to financial education. One of the issues that emerged from both the public evidence session and the evaluation of the pilot schemes was the need to offer financial education along with saving gateway accounts. The hon. Member for South Thanet will recall, as I do, discussion of whether the accounts should be interest-bearing. Teresa Perchard of Citizens Advice pointed out that if they were not, it should be explained to people what they should expect at the end of the two-year period when their account rolled into a current or basic savings account.
	Many factors will help to make the product successful. Three of them—the provision of easy access to account providers' premises, commitment on the part of providers to educating people in order to improve financial awareness, and a commitment to financial inclusion—could prove particularly powerful in that regard. We should ensure that those who are considering putting themselves forward as providers share the commitment to tackling financial exclusion. That is part of what the Bill is about, and it is no good having providers who are not interested in it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is now reassured about the purpose of this probing amendment.

Stephen Ladyman: I would not, perhaps, put it that strongly, but, absolutely, that is broadly what I am saying. One of the reasons for our current problems is that we have lost the saving habit. The Prime Minister has made that point in recent weeks when he has spoken about people saving prior to taking out a mortgage and about whether or not it is a good thing that people have 100 per cent.—or 100 per cent.-plus—mortgages, so never developing any saving habit or any notion of thrift prior to taking on the obligations of a mortgage. My understanding from contributions from Members in all parts of the House is that what we want the gateway saving accounts to encourage those people who would otherwise not have developed a saving habit to see the merit of doing so. Given our society's current problems as a result of the banks' activities, I would have thought that it would be absolutely on point for them to say, "Okay, we now accept that we need to do more to help people get that saving habit. We accept it is our job to get people to think about thrift. It is now our job to make people think they can't always come to the bank and get 100 per cent. or 120 per cent. mortgages, and that they will actually have to put a bit of their hard-earned cash aside each week and save up for some things prior to borrowing the balance of the money." When we were taking evidence, the banks should have come to us and said, "We don't see that there are huge amounts of profit in this, but we do see that it is absolutely our duty to provide these accounts. It is absolutely our duty to be providing financial education and training and support to people who need it, and it is absolutely our job, whether or not these things make money for us, to provide them and to do so willingly and to provide a good service."
	To that extent, I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), but I do not want credit unions and the Post Office to be excluded from providing such accounts. I do not think that is the intention of the hon. Gentleman's amendments—indeed, he has made it clear that they are probing amendments—but the Post Office and credit unions can play a role. Credit unions tend to be small and to provide a good, almost pastoral, service to some of their customers. They are in a position to say to people, "Let's sit down and talk about your budget. Let's talk about where you've got some extra money, and about the benefits of saving." The gateway saving account represents a big opportunity for credit unions and the Post Office, and I do not want anything to be done that would exclude them. I am happy to note that the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that that is not the intention of his amendments, and I think we have all-party support for how we want those accounts to operate.
	I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman should propose in his amendment 6 to "leave out paragraph (e)"—I assume, again, that it is a probing amendment. I would have thought that making an option for electronic filing was a way of reducing costs for those who provide these accounts. If the effect of the amendment would be to prevent the Government from allowing people to file their returns electronically, we might be inadvertently increasing costs. I suspect that is not the hon. Gentleman's intention, and I agree with him that our objective must be to keep the administrative costs as low as possible so that there is a plurality of providers, who are willing to provide the broad range of services that we want those who take out a gateway saving account to have.

Jeremy Browne: I must say that I do not see the point of amendment 5, unless its purpose is to make it clear that we want competent, reputable financial institutions to provide those accounts. I am sure that we all agree that that is desirable, especially given that significant sums of public money will be involved. I share the view of both previous speakers—I think there is general consensus on this point—that we wish to see the broadest possible number of providers, and I would very much like credit unions to be among them as they offer a different type of service, and one that some of the potential customers may feel particularly comfortable with. I would therefore regret it if the amendment were to restrict the scope for, or inclination of, credit unions to provide the service, as the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) feared. Although the hon. Gentleman has said that he wants to see a wide range of providers, I hope that by expressing our enthusiasm for credit unions we do not sound unenthusiastic about banks providing the service, because I think the one great advantage of banks doing so is that that feeds into the mainstream banking and saving system people who otherwise might not participate at all in normal banking arrangements. That lack of experience acts as a barrier to participation in financial services among wider society. There are some people in my constituency and elsewhere on very low incomes who do not have a bank account or have one but use it in a very limited fashion. Those of us, like everybody participating in this debate, who get used to a monthly salary being paid direct into our bank account should occasionally step back and reflect on how little in cash terms we actually see of the money we have been paid. Most of the money flows in and out of the banking system, and quite a small proportion is withdrawn in cash terms.
	People who are generally better off or in longer term employment get used to how banking systems work and become confident with them. Some people who have less money or who have not been introduced to formal banking by becoming a customer at a younger age may have less confidence in the system. I do not mean confidence in the banking system as a whole, because we all have less confidence in that than we did a year ago: I mean confidence in the experience of being a depositor in a bank or having a savings account. That would be a longer lasting virtue of the Bill, because we are seeking to inculcate the savings habit in the people who take up the service. If they do not maintain that habit beyond the two years in which the Government will provide substantial financial inducements to do so, the Bill will not have succeeded to the extent that we all wish. To that extent, I hope that banks are to the fore, for altruistic reasons and because I share the view of the hon. Member for South Thanet that it will be in their commercial interests to try to widen their customer base.
	Who knows whether somebody who opens a savings gateway account may end up being a prosperous customer? After all, that is the basis on which the banks push offers at students. It is not because students have very much money to deposit in the bank. Rather, the banks hope that the students will become good customers in the future. It may be that some of the people who choose to take up this option become more lucrative customers, and even those who do not become so wealthy could still be good customers in other ways, even if the total amount that they deposit with the bank is less. I hope that banks will participate. We want as wide a range of providers as possible and I hope that all those providers will be reputable. In so much as this amendment was designed to probe all those issues and stimulate a useful debate, I hope that the Minister feels that it has done so.

Mark Hoban: It has been useful to debate the nature of the providers and the terms and conditions that we would expect as well as the things that we would expect providers to do. I want to press forward on the issue of cash, because Mark Lyonette of the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd mentioned the cost of processing cash payments, which was potentially significant for credit unions.
	Although I recognise the importance of having facilities available for people to pay cash, when it comes to reducing the cost to the providers of providing the accounts, the deductions that can be made electronically through direct debits, standing orders and pay packets clearly reduce the cost of collection to providers and is a further way of encouraging a larger number of people to participate. Having said that, I know that the Portsmouth Savers credit union not only operates a counter facility through its branch but works through PayPoint, too, spreading the network of payment points widely through the catchment area that it supports. Clearly, there are ways in which credit unions can expand their accessibility in a way that is not available to some other institutions.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 9, in clause 27, page 13, line 4, after '(4)', insert ', 4'.
	Amendment 10, in clause 27, page 13, line 4, after '(4)', insert ', 6'.
	Amendment 7, in clause 27, page 13, line 7, leave out 'The first'.
	Amendment 8, in clause 27, page 13, line 10, leave out subsection (6).

Mark Hoban: This group of amendments tries to address one of the issues that the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) mentioned on Second Reading, which is the fact that the Bill is an enabling Bill and contains a large number of regulation-making powers. I think that he said that there were 29, and virtually every clause contains at least one regulation-making power. The Government have already published some draft regulations, and the amendments try selectively to enhance the parliamentary scrutiny of the regulations. I accept that there are circumstances in which the negative resolution is the appropriate route, when matters are relatively uncontentious, but I have suggested a number of areas where I felt that the affirmative procedure might be more appropriate given the implications for the taxpayer of changes to some of the criteria in the Bill.
	First, let me deal with amendment 2. Clause 6 is about eligibility and it talks about people being able to open a savings gateway account having received the notice of eligibility. When we discussed the clause in Committee, there was some discussion of the regulations under subsection (5), which are very permissive and enable people to have more than one savings gateway account at any one time or more than one over their lifetime. They also restrict the number of savings gateway accounts that someone might have. We know that the intention of the Minister and the Government is that people should have only one savings gateway account and that was the consensus that was underlined in Committee and in the evidence-taking sessions that we had before the Committee scrutinised the Bill line by line. Sharon Collard and Brian Pomeroy, among others, made it clear that if people have not got into the savings culture through one account, it is unlikely that being offered further opportunities will enable them to develop the habit of saving.
	Amendment 2 proposes that once the Government have made their first regulation to limit accounts to one per person, there should be a proper consultation if they seek to make any subsequent changes. The consultation should consider whether there should be more accounts and a copy of it should be laid before the House before any further regulations are made, to ensure that the House is aware of the outcome of the consultation before it is made.
	Amendments 7 and 8 refer back to clause 14, which gives the Government the power to make regulations for the treatment of the accounts in the context of income tax and capital gains tax. Again, the Government's intention is that the accounts should be free from income tax and capital gains tax. However, the Bill states that although the first regulations made under the clause will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, any subsequent changes will be made under the negative resolution procedure. Given that subsequent changes could make accounts subject to income tax or CGT, it is appropriate to build in a safeguard requiring proper parliamentary scrutiny, so that any subsequent orders would be made by the affirmative rather than the negative process.
	Amendments 9 and 10 deal with other parts of the Bill that allow changes to be made by the negative procedure. Clause 4 is important, as it determines the maturity period that applies to savings gateway accounts and the maximum amount that can be paid into an account. The draft regulations published by the Government set the maturity period at two years and the maximum monthly payment at £25. Any amendment to those terms would be made by the negative procedure, but lengthening the maturity period could lead to increased costs to the Exchequer as people build up higher balances that would be subject to the 50p in the pound matching process.
	Similarly, increasing the monthly payment from £25 to, say, £30 or £40 would also lead to increased costs to the Exchequer. We believe that both processes should be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure. That is a reasonable extension of the affirmative procedure, and it would provide some safeguard for taxpayers.
	Amendment 10 makes a similar point in connection with clause 6. In amendment 2, we ask that a report be laid before Parliament when the Government propose a change to the number of accounts that can be held. In amendment 10, we argue that any subsequent use of the power after the first use should be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure because, again, the cost to the Exchequer will be greater if the rules are modified to allow people to hold more accounts.

Mark Hoban: Well, I do not think that the two are in any way correlated. There is a debate to be had about what the level of parliamentary scrutiny should be. The Minister's explanation of why he rejects the amendments indicates that there is a fine line to be drawn, because there are areas where technical changes could be subject to the negative procedure. Part of the issue is that there are some instances where the Government could make a minor, technical change, such as a change to a some detail in the tax treatment of saving gateway accounts, or a fundamental change.
	What we lack in the Bill and in the procedure of the House is a way of distinguishing between a significant change and a technical change. As the Minister said, there could be a change to the monthly contribution limit just to index-link it. We would all agree that that would be a relatively minor change, which could go through on the negative procedure. However, the Government could make a significant change to double or halve the monthly contribution, which would be far from a technical change. It would be a substantive change, and the Opposition would have to go through the negative procedure by praying against the regulation.
	The Minister commented that he viewed my amendments more charitably than did the hon. Member for South Thanet. Perhaps I view the powers that the Government have under the Bill less charitably than I should; perhaps I see the opportunity to make significant changes and emphasise that opportunity rather than the possibility of making minor technical changes. On balance, I would prefer more parliamentary scrutiny with the capacity to make a significant change that could have an impact on the account, and I would prefer to err on the side of caution, rather than make it easier for Governments to get business through. However, I appreciate the points that the Minister made, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mark Hoban: I beg to move amendment 1, in page 7, line 9 , at end insert—
	'(1A) Subject to subsection (1B), funds in the account will be transferred into an account which pays interest at a rate which is equal to or greater than the rate paid on funds held in an Individual Savings Account as set out in the Finance Act 1998 (c. 36) operated by the Savings Gateway Account provider in question.
	(1B) Where an account provider does not operate an Individual Savings Account, the amounts will be transferred into an account that it provides which—
	(a) has no penalty for the withdrawal of funds without notice; and
	(b) offers a rate equal to or higher than the highest interest rate offered on other accounts operated by the provider.'.
	The final amendment covers an important point that we discussed in Committee. Clause 16 deals with the transfer of funds when an account ceases to be a saving gateway account. It is a significant element of the Bill because it creates a clear expectation of what should happen when an account comes to an end, and should be seen in the context of ensuring that people are given as much incentive as possible to continue the savings habit which they will hopefully have developed over the two-year period.
	In the pilot programme, the default option was a savings account with a very low interest rate. That is a better option than defaulting into a current account, not only in terms of the interest that someone might earn, but because a savings account might discourage them from withdrawing the money, whereas if it is lumped together with their existing current account balance, there might be a greater incentive to spend it.
	The amendment seeks to reflect some of the concerns expressed about the default option. The intention behind the Bill is to ensure that when the account comes to the end of its two-year period, there is a roll-over into an individual savings account. I sought in Committee to make that mandatory. A number of objections were raised, which I try to reflect in the amendment.
	In the evidence-taking session there was some debate about whether an ISA was the appropriate default option. Theresa Perchard from "Which?" expressed a preference for a plain vanilla savings account because of some of the complexities attached to ISAs. Mathew Wakefield from the Institute for Fiscal Studies was more open to the idea that the account should default into an ISA. One of the other arguments made in the evidence session—by Adrian Coles of the Building Societies Association, I think—was that some providers might wish to default a customer into an account with a much higher rate of interest than an ISA. That would be a positive move, but in most cases the ISA rate is higher than the rates generally offered on instant access savings accounts.
	Others made the point that some potential account providers did not offer an ISA. One can imagine a credit union, for example, not offering an ISA, and I would not want credit unions to be excluded from the provisions of the Bill, so my alternative suggestion is that where a provider does not operate an ISA, the amount should be transferred into an account where there is no penalty for instant withdrawal without notice, and which offers a rate equal to or higher than the best rate offered on another savings account.
	If somebody is rolled into an account that offers the best possible rate for that saver, it is meant to be an attractive option and to ensure that rather than the money being lost to a current account at the end of the two-year period, it rolls into a savings account and that we get the best possible deal for the saver by mandating that it should be an ISA or, where that is not offered, an account with a rate equivalent to the best rate that the provider offers.
	What happens when the account matures is, as Alan Cook from the Post Office said, a critical issue. It will help to influence the way in which people manage their money in the future. The more we can do to ensure that the default option is an account such as an ISA which offers a good rate of return and a sense that the money is set aside, the more likely it is that we will encourage people to continue to save in the future.

Ian Pearson: I sympathise with the sentiment behind the amendment. We all want to ensure that savers benefit from good returns on their savings when funds are transferred out of saving gateway accounts that have matured; we disagree on whether that should be mandated. In many ways, the amendment is a good example of the considerations that the Government need to take into account when designing policy. The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) will no doubt be familiar with the work of Thaler and Sunstein, whose book "Nudge" discusses the setting of sensible default options. I am particularly interested in the application of behavioural economics to policy making. I recommend the works of Daniel Karmann, as much as I would that of Thaler and Sunstein.
	We can have a legitimate debate about how we address the issues. We are all clear on the policy objective, which is to kick-start a savings habit. We want to make sure that the saving continues in the longer term, when the account matures. We want to see saving gateway accounts transferring on maturity to an appropriate account, through which the individual continues to save. The issue is whether we should mandate a default roll-over account into which funds should be transferred when the account holder does not give any instructions about what should happen to their account balance at maturity, or whether there should be more choice and no mandatory requirement. As part of that, we considered carefully whether default roll-over accounts should be ISAs, for example. We have decided against that for a number of reasons, some of which I explained in Committee.
	However, I point out again that we have said that we will permit transfers from matured saving gateway accounts into ISAs to be treated as previous-year subscriptions. That is an important point—in other words, those accounts will not count towards the annual ISA subscription limit. That means that savers can continue to save tax free and gain the benefits of ISAs. As the House will be aware, about one in three people in the country—more than 18 million UK adults—already have an ISA account.
	The amendment would take a prescriptive route in trying to achieve the outcome by mandating a default account; we have decided to take a permissive approach because we think that account holders may want some flexibility. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) rightly said, account holders may well find themselves in different financial circumstances and have different requirements, so it would not be right to mandate one particular type of account.
	Providers may also wish to have some flexibility to ensure that the account into which accounts roll over will be appropriate for their customers. As soon as conditions are laid down for what these accounts will look like, that flexibility would constricted or eroded. The amendment's prescriptive approach would also mean additional costs and complexity. It would require the account into which saving gateway funds are transferred to pay interest at a rate at least as good as that of an ISA offered by the provider in question, or as good as any account offered by a provider that does not offer ISAs. I applaud the hon. Member for Fareham for the ingenuity with which he phrased his amendment following the discussions that we had in Committee. However, it does not mention for how long this requirement would need to be met beyond the point of transfer. This would need to be monitored and policed to ensure that it was effective, and that process would add costs and complexity for providers and for Government in administering the scheme. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Alan Cook, the managing director of the Post Office, who said:
	"If there is over-prescription, you will introduce extra costs. We do business in different ways with our customers, and we should allow the organisations to play to their strengths." ——[ Official Report, Saving Gateway Accounts Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2009; c. 28, Q52.]
	We need to take that into account.
	I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's intentions. We want to see good rates of return being offered to savers, and I am aware of the need to consider the setting of sensible defaults because there may well be inertia and people will not be making active decisions. Nevertheless, I still think that the balance of the argument lies with not being prescriptive, and I want to give two reasons for that. First, under the banking code and the requirement to treat customers fairly, banks or others that offer saving gateway accounts that are being rolled over should be offering interest-bearing accounts that are appropriate to the interests and needs of their customers. Our expectation is that at the end of the two-year period, funds will be transferred into the most appropriate account that the provider offers. Of course, we will want to monitor that very closely.
	Secondly, as I stressed in Committee, we want competition and a marketplace. We want saving gateway customers to have good deals that are offered by saving gateway providers. Part of that package should involve setting and offering a good default option for when accounts roll over at the end of the two-year period. The more providers there are, the greater the range of options that are available, and the more competition that there is for savings when saving gateway accounts mature, the better that will be for the customer. We want individual savers to be able to choose what happens when their account reaches maturity. If they do not believe that the default option that is being offered to them by their provider is right for them, they have the right to move their saving gateway account, on maturity, to an account that is more appropriate. Obviously the advice and support that account holders receive as their account nears maturity is critical, and we want to continue to work on that with providers and intermediaries.
	The balance of argument that has influenced our policy design has been to say that the obligation to treat customers fairly, the competition and marketplace that we think will be there, and the need to give consumers choice rather than have it constrained for them outweigh a requirement to set a mandatory default option. We will of course want to monitor the situation closely. Everyone would be concerned if it became common practice that people offering saving gateway accounts were then encouraging people, on maturity, to roll over into accounts that provided no or very low levels of interest, or certainly levels that were not competitive.
	For the reasons I have set out, we do not believe the prescriptive approach that the amendment proposes is the right basis on which to proceed. I hope that I have explained my reasons for the Government's decision.

Ian Pearson: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	We had an interesting debate on Report, and I am grateful to all the hon. Members who took part in it, and to the Members of all parties who contributed in Committee. I am grateful for the constructive approach that all sides took in the Committee sittings, and for their approach to the Bill in general. We had some very useful debates and we have made some progress in understanding the Bill. I would also like to thank those witnesses who took the time to give evidence to the Committee.
	As hon. Members will know, the Bill will create a national saving gateway scheme from next year. The scheme has two objectives: first, to kick-start the saving habit among working-age people on lower incomes, and, secondly, to promote financial inclusion. Those objectives have been widely welcomed in this House and beyond. The pilots that were run over recent years showed that the saving gateway can achieve these objectives. Sharon Collard, who helped to evaluate the first pilot, told the Committee in our evidence sessions that
	"the aim of the saving gateway is to kick-start a savings habit...There is evidence that that can happen."
	We designed the scheme carefully, learning the lessons from the pilots, and during the debate we touched on many major aspects of how the scheme can work. We have, rightly, paid close attention to eligibility, which we discussed again today. I agreed in Committee to continue to consider the case for the carer's allowance to be a qualifying benefit. As I said then, carers will be eligible for the saving gateway through the qualifying benefits that are already set out in the Bill, but as I said on Report, the Government are minded to table amendments in the other place to ensure that recipients of carer's allowance who are of working age are entitled to participate in savings gateway accounts.
	We looked at the match rate on Report, and at the Government's proposed contribution of 50p for each pound saved in the scheme, and I believe that all parties, and the witnesses in Committee, agreed that that is the right level at which to set the rate. We covered various aspects of the scheme's design, such as the monthly deposit limit, the length of accounts and what should happen to the accounts when they mature.
	There has also been debate about delegated powers, and the procedure to be followed for their exercise. As I said in response to the amendments of the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), we believe that we have struck the appropriate balance, but we will continue to consider the issue in the light of any forthcoming report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place.
	These have been useful debates, and we were pleased to have the opportunity to put the Government's thinking to the test and to put these issues on the public record, as well as to debate them with Members on all sides of this House. I believe that this is an important Bill. The fact that there is such a broad political consensus should not detract from the fact that we are taking steps to establish a national savings gateway scheme for the first time, which will give around 8 million people a strong incentive to save. By giving them a chance to save up to £600, and earn up to £300 from the Government, but also by helping to build a lifetime savings habit and by bringing people into the financial mainstream, the Bill can make a real difference to people's lives and I commend it to the House.

Mark Hoban: I should always expect a Liberal Democrat MP to make a reference, wherever possible, in any debate, to proportional representation, but that may take longer to introduce. I suspect that, from the outset, the Bill was far more likely to come into force than his demand for a referendum.
	Some might argue that the Bill is a distraction from the economic and financial crisis that the country is facing, but we also need to bear in mind that one in three households in this country have no savings and no cushion against being laid off, or are facing wage cuts or an end to overtime. This Bill serves a valuable purpose in encouraging people, particularly those on low incomes, to save. People on higher incomes have an opportunity to smooth out fluctuations in income and expenses to which those on low incomes do not have access. If the Bill is successful in encouraging people to save, it will enable them to create a modest buffer against variations in income, such as the unexpected expense of being laid-off for a short period. It will give people a degree of financial security that they have not had hitherto.
	The Bill is a means to an end. It is designed to develop a savings culture in this country and there is a relatively generous match of 50p in the pound to encourage that culture to develop. A clear belief was expressed in the evidence that we heard that the two-year duration and the match level would be sufficient to start to encourage the development of that savings culture.
	I do not believe that the account in itself is enough. Alongside it, we need an emphasis on financial education and other ways of tackling financial exclusion. We need to help people to understand why it is important to save, and although the lessons people learn from the financial crisis will act as a spur to save at the moment, a longer-term change in culture is needed.
	We need to ensure that there is an evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme. We need to demonstrate that it works. There is a significant cost to the taxpayer—it will cost the £340 million in the first three years of its operation, falling to £60 million thereafter—so we need to demonstrate that taxpayers' money is being spent well and wisely, that the Bill has led to people saving money and to an increase in net wealth.
	There are some rough edges to the Bill. We talked on Report about the mismatch between the groups of people we want to help and the way in which the Government will deliver the Bill by tackling the issue of benefit entitlement. We understand the practical and pragmatic approach that the Government have adopted in trying to achieve the Bill's goals, but we should not forget that there will be people on low income who are not eligible to the account, and we need to find ways of encouraging them to save. More work needs to be done on that.
	The Bill is a welcome measure that will help to tackle the lack of savings among a small group of people—although it must be said that 8 million people are eligible. The problems families are facing today give a clear sign that we need to do far more work to encourage people to save to provide a cushion for short-term fluctuations to their income, and to enable them to take responsibilities for their families' futures in the long term. The Bill is a start, but far more work needs to be done to achieve the goal of increasing savings in this country.

John Redwood: The Bill is a mouse of a measure to handle an elephant of a problem. The Liberal Democrats say that this is the Oscars ceremony, but can anyone believe that the Bill deserves an Oscar when it is well below the standard of an amateur production, albeit by a group of professionals who should know better? Indeed, Ministers' audacity in not realising how feeble the Bill is in relation to the savings problem that they confront takes one's breath away.
	We meet against the background of a huge economic crisis, in which savers are being wiped out daily. If they have risky assets, they are falling in value catastrophically. If their money is on deposit in the banks, the interest rate is now tiny. In the stages of the Bill in which I participated, one of my biggest disappointments was the unwillingness or inability of the Economic Secretary and the Government to tell us anything about how the money would be invested and what sort of return it might earn, yet they have had a decade to prepare the measure. They tell us that they have consulted the savings industry, which will help effect the Bill, but there the Economic Secretary sits, thinking of something else, because he knows that he will get his Bill and he has not a clue about what sort of offer or deal will be available when it is enacted and translated into action on the ground.
	It is a disgrace that so many people in this country are so poor that they have no savings. It is a disgrace that a savings culture for such people has not been more actively promoted to give them a buffer and more options and choices in life. It is a common aim of all the parties represented in the House to do something about it. However, do the Government genuinely believe that such a measure will work if interest rates for savers are 0.5 per cent. or 1 per cent.? Do they believe that it will work if all they do is borrow more and more, thus conveying the message that the way to get ahead and have a decent job is to borrow and borrow, not save and be prudent?
	The Government are by far the most imprudent with which the country has ever been cursed. They add trillions to the public debt— [Interruption.] They think that that is funny, but they have the audacity to say to the very poor that they must never borrow, but save, and that the Government will give them a tiny increment from the money that they will borrow on behalf of us all. They cannot even tell the prospective savers what sort of an interest rate they might get on their money.
	It is typical of a Government who have lost the plot, who are wrecking the economy and driving us deeper and deeper into gross national debt that they introduce a pathetic, limp, delayed and inadequate Bill and feel proud of themselves.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

David Heath: This debate is about an unusual procedure, although obviously not one that is out of order, because it has occasionally been used before. However, it is an unusual procedure to enable amendments to be tabled before Second Reading. We have procedures in this House for a reason. We have them to allow orderly debate, particularly on legislation, in order to ensure that Members have proper opportunities to raise points that they think are important, that those points are properly considered by the proposers of the Bill—in this case the Government—and that there is a possibility to amend the legislation.
	That is why we have the well-established procedure of having, after First Reading, Second Reading, which is an opportunity to consider the principles of a Bill. Following Second Reading, we have the opportunity to table amendments, with careful provisos to ensure that amendments are not tabled at the last moment and, therefore, that amendments do not come before the House that hon. Members have not had the opportunity to peruse properly. Then we have the Committee stage, which enables proper clause-by-clause, line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. Then, again after an appropriate period, the Bill, as amended, is reported to the House, with the opportunity for amendments to be tabled and for further consideration before Third Reading.

Andrew MacKinlay: That is why I observed earlier this afternoon that this was like a Mafia offer: an offer that I cannot refuse. I do want the opportunity to table some amendments, inadequate though that opportunity is. At least their lordships may pick them up, seeing the nonsense that has gone on in this place. At least we shall be able to flag up some amendments that have not been explored. That does not mean, however, that we should do the ultimate in rubber-stamping and nod the motion through, as we did last night and the night before, without its being made clear to the current Leader of the House that we have had enough, and will refer to this debate on the next occasion when Northern Ireland legislation has to go through its stages in a single day.
	I find wholly bogus and somewhat offensive the suggestion that we have to cut, and make a sham of, our practices in order to facilitate the Northern Ireland Assembly. Both individual Members and the body itself have my greatest respect, but with respect, it has plenary Sessions two days a week at most, finishes at 6 o'clock, and will adjourn in June or early July. It has been advanced to me that that is why it is imperative that this mother of Parliaments must fit in with the Northern Ireland Assembly and go through this nonsense. That is not acceptable. I hope that there might be some change even at this late stage, especially given that the Deputy Leader of the House has indicated that the Leader of the House is still contemplating the issue.
	Let me explain what I propose: we should have the Second Reading next Wednesday, the opportunity to table amendments after that, and proceed again as swiftly as is sensible and possible to facilitate Northern Ireland Members in particular, so that probably the following Wednesday we would have the Committee and Third Reading.

Mark Durkan: It has been said that this timetable is necessitated by the requirements of the Assembly. As other hon. Members have pointed out, there is no reference or record showing that the Assembly has made such a request or that there is such a demand, and there is no business specifically timetabled for the Assembly in this respect, even though some of us regret that fact. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee has not agreed anything that would suggest that it expects legislation to be introduced within a given time. The relevant legislation in the Assembly would have to be tabled jointly by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, and I know of no agreement between them to do so or with the Committee to schedule business in the Assembly on that basis. The House therefore cannot rely on the impression that was given by the Deputy Leader of the House in that respect.
	I have already indicated that, like others, I do not believe that microwave legislation can be a good idea in any circumstances. This legislation has implications. It will change things that were provided for in various bits of legislation over the past few years, and we need to tease out whether it does so carefully, properly and responsibly. Many of us wish to table amendments that would offer better fallback positions than the Bill does. The fallback positions in the Bill are more like fall-down situations, such as Departments being dissolved, left without a Minister or having their functions broken up and distributed across other Departments. Some of us will table amendments that would create a reliable fallback situation, but in all likelihood there will be no time for those amendments to be dealt with.

Peter Bone: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), whose speech as a parliamentarian will, I hope, have been noted by those on his Front Bench. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House has taken on board the comments made today.
	I am afraid that this is not a one-off incident. Time and again, we have seen the time for Parliament to debate a controversial issue being dramatically restricted. It is not in the Government's interests to do that, as it appears that they are hiding from proper scrutiny. As we have already heard, we are in a Catch-22 situation. If we vote against the motion, no amendments can be moved. I hope that the Leader of the House will have heard the debate and will propose a revised timetable.
	This year, the House is sitting for one of the shortest periods in living memory. If we had not had this debate, we would have finished three or three and a half hours earlier than we were required to. The problem is not that there is not time, but that the Government are rushing through something that they do not want scrutinised. The Deputy Leader of the House is shaking his head, so I assume that that means that he has changed his mind and will give more time for proper scrutiny. Failure to do that reflects badly on the Government and does not help their case. If the Deputy Leader of the House wants to intervene and argue against that point, he can, but I am afraid that it is true that time and again the more controversial the issue is the less time we get to debate it.